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"Proponents of Heavier Trucks Deliver Message to Lawmakers"
Transport Topics - April 10, 2000

WASHINGTON - Cattle ranchers, steel makers and trucking company executives fanned out across Capitol Hill last week in an effort to spark congressional interest in heavier trucks.

The April 4 legislative "fly-in" was organized by Americans for Safe and Efficient Transportation, a coalition that would like to see trucks weighing up to 97,000 pounds operating on federal highways as long as the trailers are fitted with a third axle.

Federal Highway Administration analyst Jim March (left) discusses the agency's truck size and weight study with John McQuaid, president of the National Private Truck Council, and John Smith, chairman of CRST International.

ASET members are shippers, receivers, carriers, a dozen state trucking associations and several other national trucking groups.

Legislation, which is working its way through the House, is backed by the group and would give states the option to allow the heavier trucks on Interstate highways (4-3, p. 58). Most states routinely grant permits to carriers hauling loads well over the current 80,000-pound federal limit.

"This legislation is a win-win on several fronts," said Eric Davis, president of Bruneau Cattle Co. in Ohyhee County, Idaho.

Trucking executives such as John Smith, president of CRST International, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Steve Williams, president of Maverick Transportation, North Little Rock, Ark., said the greater weight would increase vehicle capacity, allowing productivity improvement without harming highway safety or causing more damage to roads an bridges.

"This additional axle would allow us to haul 17,000 more pounds of steel, which translates into a 21% increase in payload capacity," Williams said in an interview before the rally in the basement of the Capitol.

Supporters of 97,000-pound commercial vehicles said they would work to change the terms of the debate over trucking productivity, which to date have centered around the public fear of bigger trucks and the concern that heavier trucks will damage highways and bridges.

Longer combination vehicles, especially triple-trailer trucks, have been the poster child of the productivity debate since Congress froze the expansion of LCV routes in 1991, said Jim March, an analyst with the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Transportation Policy Studies.

"We're just not ready to move forward with longer vehicles," he said.

Proposals to increase the number of routes triples or other LCVs operating on roads have not been seriously discussed by trucking since 1997. However, ASET persuaded Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Merrill Cook (R-Utah) to introduce legislation that would give states the 97,000-pound option in May 1999.

The proposal has attracted support from three other lawmakers so far, although fly-in organizers were confident they would land other co-sponsors in the near future.

Peterson predicted the legislation would eventually pass. As a state senator, he won approval of a law increasing the maximum weight of trucks on Minnesota's roads from 73,280 to 80,000 pounds in 1976.

"I think it's reachable, but we have to get the message out," he said of his current bill.

FHWA may have reason to oppose heavier trucks. A draft study released by the agency in December 1998 warns that the federal bridge formula would have to be amended to allow 97,000-pound trucks to operate, March said. Trucking would also have to address the concerns raised in the agency's 1997 highway cost allocation study, which found federal taxes and fees paid by operators of heavy trucks do not equal the cost of the wear and tear the rigs impose on pavement.

ASET and other trucking groups have criticized the draft report's findings. The controversial report has been languishing at the federal Office of Management and Budget for a year.

Smith of CRST said the addition of a third trailer axle would spread the weight out over a greater length of pavement, resulting in less roadway damage.

By David Barnes
Staff Writer